At some sporting and concert venues, seating spaces reserved for people with disabilities can sometimes be prime spots. So it’s sadly not surprising that unscrupulous scalpers are taking advantage of a loophole in the Americans with Disabilities Act that makes it legal for them to buy up blocks of these seats and then resell them to people without disabilities.

The ADA allows anyone who buys a seat in a handicapped-accessible row to also purchase up to three spots in that row for their friends, regardless of whether they are disabled or not.

And if the disabled buyer chooses to resell their ticket, they are not required to sell the ticket to another disabled person.

Thus, scalpers go in and buy up four tickets at a time from the venues under the idea that at least one ticketholder is disabled. Then they flip those seats to the highest bidder.

CBS Denver talked to one area man who uses a wheelchair. He had tried to buy tickets to see The String Cheese Incident at Red Rocks only to find the wheelchair-accessible seats had quickly sold out.

A look at StubHub found those $60 seats suddenly going for up to $253 each. The reason? The wheelchair-accessible seats at Red Rocks are in the front row, while the tickets for the show are general admission, thus making them a premium for people who wanted up-front access without the hassle of elbowing through the crowd.

“They’re not breaking the law, but there’s a moral question there of how they’re taking advantage of people with disabilities,” said someone from Ticketmaster, thus marking the first — and likely last — time we ever agreed with Ticketmaster.

that’s going to depend on the layout of the building. when i worked at cirque du soleil in orlando the wheelchair accessible seats were in the center, between the upper and lower sections, because that was the easiest access to the entrance/exit and didn’t require adding additional ramps.

Question: don’t private venues have a right to place these seats pretty much where they damned well want to, within reason? And can’t you vote with your dollar if you’re incensed that handicapped people get “premium seating”?

“Not fair!” loses its effectiveness the more you age beyond ten years old.

You might want to dial down that outrage and actually read the Federal statue. Actually the ADA states that no matter where the seats are located there should be a percentage at each price level. How a venue chooses to execute that is up to them.
For example, in an area with floor seating, mezzanine, and balcony, the most sensible thing to do would be to have accessible seating at each level but not all architects think that logically. However, if all of the accessible seats are on the floor level, some are priced at floor price, some at mezzanine, and some at balcony. OR if all of the accessible seats are in the balcony, some are priced at floor, mezzanine, etc.
Accessible seating is not only for people with mobility challenges; someone with low vision or hard of hearing may need to be close to experience the concert the same way you or I do and may not have the resources to buy a front row seat at full price every time. Someone with epilepsy may need a seat close to an exit in case they feel an episode coming on from the stage lighting.

Have you ever had to re-do your kitchen to make all cabinets reachable? Ever had to get rid of your car to buy a van with a chair lift and hand controls? I could keep going but I think a better seat at a goddamn game isn’t too much.

For such an agreeable and intelligent fellow as yourself, if you wanted a legitimate reason to sit in the disabled section in the future, I’m certain there’d be no shortage of volunteers willing to make that happen for you.

Depends on the facility. At Red Rocks, the venue in the story, it’s a super steep amphitheater. Most baseball parks I’ve been to, for example, have wheelchair seating available somewhere in the middle.

The main reason they can’t do that is it becomes an issue of alienating disabled customers. why should someone in a wheelchair be forced to go to an event and sit alone if they have able bodied friends?

The purpose is probably so families of up to four can attend an event together. If they were only allowed one escort, a disabled child would have to be with the parent in one place, and the other parent with the other child in another.

Families of four seems to hit most of the averages as well. Not all, but most.

No, scalping will be a problem until tickets are assigned to individuals and are completely non-transferable, similar to airline tickets now. Get to the venue, swipe a card with your ID in the mag stripe (DL, credit card, etc), and get in. The Austin City Limits festival does something similar for wristbands and it has really cut down on scalping: If your ID doesn’t match the person who the wristband was issued to (and they do spot-check) they will take it and kick you out.

I’m shocked most of the big venues haven’t taken this route yet because it would give them the opportunity to re-sell the tickets of no-shows. They could even offer “refundable” tickets for an additional fee.

That is the reason I quit going to a lot of shows. If I buy a ticket I should be able to do what I want with it. On the other hand, I have discovered a lot of great music, by going to local clubs and smaller venues.

I don’t think it would be too much extra work to create an exchange to allow you to transfer the ticket to another individual. The service would send a link to the person you want to transfer to, who could enter their information into the system. Now they’re the new ticket “owner.”

I agree that something should be done. Its virtually impossible to get tickets to some shows, or at least the most inexpensive tickets. I was trying to get tickets to see Book of Mormon and there is not a single pair of tickets in the lowest price range (and the next lowest price is more than double the cost) for any performance for as long as they are currently selling (through May 2013). But there are hundreds available at Stub Hub for $100 or more over the face value.

Why not make it a requirement on the ticket that of the block of 4 tickets sold to the ‘disabled’ person, at least 1 person in the group needs to come in with their handicapped parking placard, or some other governemtn issued proof of disability?

The tickets are all barcoded now, anyways, so if a group shows up separately, they all have to wait til they are all there and someone ‘proves’ disability.. or if the ‘disabled’ person gets there first, the rest of the tickets are then flagged to allow entry.

Of course, if no one in the group shows up ‘disabled’, that hurdle can be overcome by having one of the security staff strike a member of the group squarely in the groin with a 3-wood.

Seriously, I know ADA rules in some cases make it illegal for one to ask about a person’s disability. BUT requiring handicapped seats be purchased and/or picked up at the venue by someone in possession of a handicapped placard gets around the requirement while still providing some sort of verification.

because the parking placard needs to stay with the car and as far as i know [as a disabled person] there isn’t any other form of government issued ID that indicates disability. to get my parking placard i had to take a form from my doctor to the DMV.

There is some kind of card that goes along with the handicapped parking placard. My uncle has had to show it when we showed up for tailgating at FedEx Field in the handicapped lot using his vehicle placard. This goes to help prove that you aren’t taking up space in the handicapped lot by borrowing or stealing someone else’s thing.

Of course, not all handicapped people drive, so this would not be a complete solution.

You would buy a Record or CD, the band would make money, the label would make money, everyone would win.
You would stand in line to get tickets, at the box office or a reseller, the band would make money, the venue would make money.

Then came the internet and digital copies. Easy to copy, easy to trade. Music stores went out of business, and so did the labels.

That’s OK, bands could give their music away for free, kind of like the radio, to promote live concerts. Bands could make money, venues could make money, it was a compromise.

Then came TicketMaster, who bought all the venues, and all their competition. They also either own, or have deals with most traditional scalping agencies, and even have something called “StubHub” which is an online scalping agent. They charge you so you can print their tickets out on your printer, and charge you a fee to buy tickets, and charge you a fee to sell tickets.

Good bye bands making money, good bye venues making money, good bye labels making money. Ticketmaster makes money, and for that reason alone, I no longer go to concerts.

Now music comes from “reality TV shows”. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ticketmaster owns these as well.

I agree with the first part of your rant. I doubt that for the most part though musicians care how much you paid for your seat. Whether you bought it at face value or ten times that much. Just as long as the seat was sold and they got their cut.

I must admit though I do enjoy seeing the occasional news story about scalpers trying to sell their tickets at a loss because the venue didn’t sell out. Then they complain that people won’t even give them face value. My heart bleeds.

To be “fair”, Ticketmaster has been around for decades, before the internet and digital music. Same with scalper businesses. They just used to either pay homeless people to stand in line to buy the tickets, or have people already buying 2 tickets buy 4 or 6 and then give them something in compensation (or as some have claimed, pay the people selling tickets to ‘hold some back’ to sell to the scalpers).

Its just easier now for the scalpers themselves, as well as Ticketmaster, to just electronically buy and resell the tickets.

The funny thing about this when they try it at one of the main venues here is…. when they resell the “disabled” seat to someone not disabled… they get the surprise of finding out that there is no chair there. It’s a wheelchair space, why would there be a seat in the way?

The other three companion seats technically don’t have to be in the same row, just together… so the setup is also they are all behind the wheelchair spaces.

And they are in row K or something like that… close, but not front row.

Even so, because they are required to have at least some wheelchair seats available at the lowest price range, they often set them all at it… so there are still frequent doofs who try it.

They’re not breaking the law, but there’s a moral question there of how they’re taking advantage of people with disabilities,” said someone from Ticketmaster, thus marking the first â€” and likely last â€” time we ever agreed with Ticketmaster.

Uh…if non-disabled people are falsely claiming disability in order to buy up and then resell the seats meant for disabled people, how exactly is that NOT breaking the law?

That is unclear. From where I sit, the requirement that these seats be available for disabled people would equate to being a requirement that they be sold only to actually disabled people in the first place (granting that resale by said disabled buyer does not have a restriction). Otherwise there’s no point in having them be available for the disabled to begin with.

That’s a little funny, I have the opposite problem where I’m constantly amazed at the SUVs that are parked in the “Small car” spots. Their tail ends usually are far enough out to impede the flow of traffic around them.

Another favourite of mine is the SUV drivers (Also people with expensive sports cars) that decide they want extra door room, or just to prevent others from potentially dinging them, by taking up 2 or 4 spots. I almost wanted to wait around just to see what kind of person thought they were entitled to take up 4 spots for their car.

This is a predictable side-effect of do-good laws & regulations which interfere with the free market. It seems like a ridiculous and obvious loop hole that’s easy to correct, but its more complicated than that.
The original idea is that handicapped people should be able to get accesible seats that have a good view while sitting down at low-price.
Why not restrict it so only disabled can use the seats, as some comments say ?
Well, then the disabled can’t sit with family and friendslike everyone else, that’s not fair to the disabled. Why not mandate that you cannot resell the tickets? Well, if other people can resell their tickets, why can’t the disabled, that’s discrimination. Well, why not restrict it so you can only resell to the disabled. Again, other people can sell their tickets to whomever they want, so its discrimination to block the disabled from doing the same.

“They’re not breaking the law, but there’s a moral question there of how they’re taking advantage of people with disabilities,” said someone from Ticketmaster, thus marking the first â€” and likely last â€” time we ever agreed with Ticketmaster.

People usually have decency and consideration, and adhere to the majority moral code. However, the only (mandated!) responsibility of a corporation is to maximize profit and value for shareholders–that’s it. Screw “doing the right thing”.

This case is a prime example of why “Corporations being people” is a legal fiction that doesn’t work in real-world applications, unless we also want to label some of them as being sociopaths.

The ADA is a scam. It gives shysters the ability to shake down businesses for violating the most ridiculous of regulations and cost of hiring a shyster of your own to defend against a frivolous lawsuit is more than it costs to settle it. So now you have businesses getting sued for having aisles that are .1 inches too narrow.

The ADA has done more to harm disabled people than any other law. Businesses are now terrified of disabled people because of fear they will get shaken down under the ADA.

This is why some places have a separate “special needs” department to handle the handicap-accessible resources. That way, one actually has to show up in person to claim the resource to at least make it look credible that they are handicapped.

As much as I hate the ADA and the Tyranny of the Disabled, I do believe that it should be illegal to sell a handicap-accessible seat to a non-handicapped person.